


baby steps

by watergator



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 16:07:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17409995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watergator/pseuds/watergator
Summary: dan and phil discuss the future after a dinner with phil's parents





	baby steps

“You’re overreacting.”  
  
Dan stops his pacing across the little stretch of the spare room to turn and look over at Phil. Right now he’s sat up in bed with his hair pushed up off his face and black rimmed glasses that have slipped down his nose, framing his face nicely as he sits with his head ducked down in a book, and if Dan wasn’t trying to channel every emotion possible to his very being, he’d perhaps snuggle up beside him and kiss him on his nose and tell him he looks pretty like this – but Dan instead stares Phil down with narrowed eyes and pursed lips, despite the fact that Phil doesn’t look up from his book once to see the look of anger come from him.  
  
“I am not overreacting,” Dan spits, hoping he’ll be able to convey some of the emotion through his voice to get Phil to look up at him, but it doesn’t seem to work as Phil simply flicks to the next page.  
  
“I am not, Phil,” Dan adds, voice a little sharper this time. “Phil.”  
  
Phil looks up for a second to peer at Dan from over his glasses before flashing him a quick, uninterested smile.   
  
“Okay babe,” he says. “You’re not overreacting,” he smiles with a quick nod before going back to his book, but Dan isn’t convinced.  
  
Dan lets out a groan of frustration, and stomps over to the bed to flop down on it, letting out another loud huff of air blow through his nostrils. This seems to get Phil’s attention when he settles his book down on the bedside table with the page folded inwardly.  
  
“Definitely not overreacting, no?” Phil teases as he leans over closer to where Dan sits beside him, but Dan just sits his back to the headboard and folds his arms over his chest with another huff.  
  
“I don’t think I am, quite frankly,” Dan hisses as he stares hard at the wall at the other side of the room. “I think I’m reacting the perfectly measured amount. This is the right amount of reaction in my position.”  
  
Phil chuckles warmly as he twists his body around just a little to face Dan better, placing a hand over Dan’s leg.  
  
“Dan, you shouldn’t take everything my mum says so seriously. Honestly, she’s always been like it, you should know that by now,” Phil tells him in his sweet voice, but Dan just shakes his head with an angry pout scrunched up on his face, little curls bouncing across his face as he shakes his head.  
  
“No, I know what your mum is like, and that’s why is worries me, Phil,” Dan says, pulling his gaze away from the blank wall to look at Phil, who offers him a warm smile.  
  
All it had been was an off-handed comment from Kath at dinner – simply talking about marriage and babies as she often did when her children and their other halves were in earshot, and usually when the conversation rolled around about little mini Phil’s and Dan’s, or even mini Martyn’s and Cornelia’s or talks of wedding rings, and venues that would look perfect this time of year, the four young adults would exchange rolled eyes and smirks and stifled laughter as Kath would babble on about how much she was in need for a good summer wedding, or how broody for a baby she’d get.  
  
But this time round, whilst trying to earn extra holiday boyfriend points at dinner, Dan had managed to corner himself in conversation with Phil’s lovely mother about how if they were to make any plans for their future, that now would be a good time to start, leaving Dan to stutter through a conversation about forever homes and nurseries. All whilst Phil had watched with a shake of his head and a laugh.  
  
“Dan, don’t let her get to your head,” Phil assures him, rubbing his thumb over the fabric of Dan’s pyjama pants. “She’ll have forgotten the entire conversation by tomorrow anyways,” he adds with a pat of his hand against his leg, but Dan squirms away.  
  
“That’s not the point Phil,” Dan frowns. “She thinks we’re gonna be getting married and starting a family by the end of the year. It’s what she expects.”  
  
Phil laughs again, and it sounds so warm and comforting it could melt butter, but right now to Dan it feels inappropriate.  
  
“And?” Phil chuckles. “Let her think that. Dan, she’s my mother, of course she’s gonna nag us about those things. She’s been doing it for years,” Phil shrugs his shoulders. “Think how Mar and Corn feel,” he adds with a huffed laughter.  
  
Dan isn’t convinced though, and instead peels himself away from Phil and goes back to pacing the small space of the spare room they’re sharing in Phil’s parent’s house. Luckily they’re downstairs whilst Phil’s parents sleep upstairs; Phil is all too aware of Dan’s pacing feet during the night.  
  
“Yeah, but she said to me that this was a good year to get things started. What does that mean, Phil. You don’t think she’s right do you?” He stops to look over at Phil with a frown. Phil laughs lightly again and shakes his head.  
  
“My mum would want us to get married on the beach tomorrow if we could. She’s not always right about everything.”  
  
Dan chews down on his lip and peels a strip of skin with his teeth before grossly swallowing it down. “She probably thinks I’m gonna propose. She wants me to, Phil. She wants me to fucking propose by the end of the year,” Dan begins to panic slightly with his voice climbing a couple of octaves higher.  
  
“And are you planning on marrying my mother by any chance?” Phil asks, and Dan looks at him, puzzled before shaking his head,  
  
“What? No,” he says in disbelief. “Why would I do that?”  
  
Phil shrugs. “It just sounds like you’re more worried about what my mum wants rather than what I want. What we want,” Phil says as he pulls his glasses off his nose and folds them, placing them on his bedside table.  
  
Dan walks back to the bed and sits on the edge on his knees, walking them up closer to Phil.  
  
“And what do you want, Phil?” he asks.   
  
Phil sits up a little and gestures for Dan to come closer, which he does until Phil is able to reach forward and cup the sides of Dan’s face with his hands, holding him there to stare deeply into his eyes.  
  
“We know what we want. We want 2019 to be the year we take steps forward,” Phil tells him, running a thumb across his freckled cheek. “We’re gonna start by looking at houses sometime in the spring,” Phil reminds him and Dan nods.  
  
“That doesn’t mean get down on one knee and have kids by December,” Phil adds with a smile. “You don’t need to rush anything.”  
  
Dan seems to swallow the lump in his throat and his tongue darts out to lick at his dry lips. “I just don’t wanna disappoint anyone,” he whispers and Phil blinks at him.  
  
“You’re not disappointing anyone by not indulging in my mum’s sad empty nest fantasies.”  
  
Dan looks away, eyes flickering down from Phil’s face. “That’s pretty sad, actually.”  
  
“It is, but she’s just a mum. She’s always gonna be nagging and pressuring one of us for that kinda thing. She’ll do it more because she likes you,” Phil tells him with a grin, to which Dan grins back.  
  
“I just don’t want to come back next Christmas and have her sad that there’s no engagement ring or babies,” Dan mumbles and Phil brushes his fingers over Dan’s skin once more, feeling how soft it feels under his touch.  
  
“There isn’t going to be any engagement rings or babies, and she’ll be okay with that,” Phil tells him. “And so will we, because when the time does come for those things, it’ll be when we’re ready.”  
  
Dan opens his mouth, then snaps it shut again, and lets out another small huff as Phil drops his hands from his face.  
  
“It’s just – she said about us getting older, and I dunno. My parents were younger than us when they had me. Are we waiting too long?” Dan looks up, eyes sparkling with a certain kind of uncertainty that look to Phil for answers.   
  
Phil shakes his head. “I think we’re taking it at our own pace, and I think my mum has you scared. It’s like commitment fear but the other way around,” he jokes and Dan’s lips quirk into a small smile.  
  
“It’s an everything-fear with that woman. Honestly, your mother is not a force to be reckoned with,” Dan says with a shake of his head, and Phil laughs leaning forward a little.  
  
“Do you though?” Phil asks. “Do you think we’re waiting too long?”  
  
Dan chews on his lips, a little spot of blood pooling before he licks it away. He shrugs his shoulders. “I dunno. No. What do you think?”  
  
Phil shrugs his shoulders back. “I mean, we’re looking at houses. We might find something we like, but I’d rather it take a while than rush it and live somewhere mediocre,” he says and Dan nods in agreement.  
  
“And then once we’re moved, then we can just, take it easy,” Dan says and Phil hums.  
  
“We’ll take it so easy,” he smiles. “We still have a dog to get first,” Phil adds with a nod of his head, and Dan’s face lights up in a smile.  
  
“Yeah, that’s true,” he shuffles forward. “Techinally we need to figure out what dog we want first,” he cocks his head and Phil laughs and leans in to kiss him.  
  
“That’s also true. So many little baby steps to take,” he mumbles softly against Dan lips, and it tickles because they both let out little laughs before kissing again.  
  
“Just little baby steps until we figure it all out, right?” Dan whispers once they pull away and Phil nods.  
  
“Just baby steps. Then you can propose.”  
  
Dan snorts a laugh, “There’s no way I’m proposing. You’re getting down on one knee mister, whether you like it or not,” he laughs, pressing in for another long, slow kiss.  
  
Phil pulls away with a giggle, murmuring against the soft plump of Dan’s lips with a grin.   
  
“We’ll figure that out when we get there.”  


**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on tumblr !! @watergator


End file.
